Claims that a state Senate candidate hasn’t established residency and shouldn’t be on the ballot are bound for an emergency court hearing, even as early voting continues.
Kanawha Circuit Judge Duke Bloom will hear evidence in the case affecting the Republican primary for Senate District 8 during a hearing at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The district covers includes Roane and Clay counties and parts of Kanawha, Putnam and Jackson. A resident of that part of Kanawha County, Alicia Stine, is the petitioner in a case filed late last week.
Stine, represented by Charleston attorney Anthony Majestro, contends in a 32-page petition that Republican candidate Andrea Garrett Kiessling has actually been a North Carolina resident well past the requirements established by West Virginia’s constitution.
Those issues were raised initially last week by another Republican in the race, former state Delegate Joshua Higginbotham.
West Virginia’s constitution includes a couple of requirements. One is that candidates must have been citizens of the state for five years prior to their election. Another is that senators must be residents within their districts for one year prior to being elected.
The plaintiff is asking for Kiessling to provide copies of her drivers’ licenses, copies of her motor vehicle registrations and copies of her tax returns for the past five years.
The petition was sent to Kiessling by U.S. Mail to addresses in Spencer, West Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Early voting is ongoing in West Virginia, and primary elections are next Tuesday, May 10. So Kiessling is already on ballots.
Stine’s petition, which also names the Secretary of State’s Office, asks for Kiessling to be declared ineligible to run, to have her name removed from ballots, to have votes for Kiessling disregarded and for county clerks to post signs at polling places stating that she is ineligible.
To make these claims, the plaintiff cites Kiessling’s longstanding record as a North Carolina voter and a filing late last summer to pay personal property taxes on a vehicle in Roane County. The court petition also cites Kiessling’s own blog entry describing herself as a Charlotte resident.
Documentation from the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office shows that Kiessling first registered as a Republican in Spencer in 2009 and voted in the 2010 GOP primary.
For years after that, the documentation notes that no record of voting activity is found in West Virginia. In 2018, the Secretary of State’s Office made note that she had not responded to a standard confirmation request. In February, 2021, there was a note that she had been inactive for two federal elections. That’s a period that led to her being swept from the state’s voter rolls.
A search of North Carolina’s voter rolls shows that Andrea Garrett Kiessling, with the same birth date, of Charlotte is still listed as an eligible voter there. Her voting record shows participation in the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 general elections in Mecklenberg County.
Kiessling’s activity picks up in West Virginia again at the end of this past January as she registers as a voter at a Roane County address, starting Jan. 29.
Also on Jan. 29, she registered to run for state Senate.
“Finally, while she is running for a seat from Senate District 8, she is registered as “Active” to vote in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Thus she cannot even legally vote for herself!” the petition states.
Kiessling, in a recent television news interview, contended she’s clear to run in the district.
“To me it’s a simple question, are you, or are you not a citizen of this state for the past five years?” political reporter Mark Curtis asked in an interview over streaming technology for Nexstar stations.
“I am a citizen of this state, yes,” Kiessling responded.
Curtis followed up by asking, “Even though you worked and voted in another state?”
Kiessling paused and said, “Correct.”
Kiessling and Higginbotham are among four Republicans running in the 8th Senate District, which includes Roane and Clay counties and parts of Kanawha, Putnam and Jackson. The others are Mark Hunt, a former Democratic delegate from Charleston, and Mark Mitchem from Clay.
The recent redistricting process generated competitive races in reshaped districts, including the 8th Senate, where the incumbent is Democrat Richard Lindsay of Charleston.
Kiessling has received consistent backing by Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, who is unopposed in his own race for re-election. In a social media post after Higginbotham went public with his claims, Tarr referred to them as a “disinformation campaign.”
West Virginia political consultant Greg Thomas has been advising Kiessling and, lately, publicly feuding with Higginbotham. In an interview late last week with “580 Live” on Charleston’s WCHS radio, Thomas called Higginbotham’s claims dishonest.
“It’s too little too late, and it’s a lie, which is par for the course for former Delegate Higginbotham,” Thomas said in the radio interview.
Thomas contended Higginbotham filed to run for the Senate seat without solid support from other Republicans. Thomas suggested party activists might not have supported any GOP candidate in that race at all until the emergency of Kiessling, a 35-year-old political newcomer who grew up in Roane County.
Thomas said her reputation was “young person, from here, moved down to Charlotte for a while. She’s been back for a while, though. Has a small business, co-founded the Christian school there in Spencer.”
He continued, “So I call her, talked to her, go through the same stuff you would any candidate, right: Show me your resume. Where are you from? Where did you go to school? Where have you worked? What have you done?
“We were fully aware that from 2012 to 2017 she lived full time in Charlotte. From 2017, she started renting out the townhouse she had down there and was traveling back and forth between there and here. You know, she and her husband both had jobs that required a lot of air travel,” he said. “So she stayed registered down there, and that’s the story.”